Adobe ships new features, new apps, exclusively to cloud subscribers

The first preview of the responsive design tool Edge Reflow is now available.

Adobe today shipped the first public preview of Edge Reflow. First shown off last September, the new application for responsive Web design is designed to make it easier for developers to produce webpages that alter their layout in response to changes in screen size, enabling the same page to be used on both desktop and portable devices.

The company is also shipping an update for three other tools. It's adding direct support for using the free Edge Web Fonts to its Web development app Dreamweaver and its timeline-based animation software Edge Animate. Edge Animate is also picking up new support for CSS gradients. Finally, the Edge Code HTML editor, currently available as a preview, is being updated to support live previewing and a quick edit mode that allows scripts and styles to be edited where they're used even when they're stored in separate files.

The new Edge Reflow app looks handy for those interested in responsive Web design, and the other improvements are pleasant if incremental. The most significant thing is not the updates themselves, however, but the fact that they're being made exclusive to Creative Cloud subscribers. Buyers of the traditional perpetually licensed versions of Creative Suite are excluded.

Adobe says its cloud suite has great momentum. The company claims to have more than 1 million free members, and 326,000 paid members, with 90 percent of those paid members picking the annual plans over the month-to-month ones, and 81 percent going for the full suite, costing $49.99 or $69.99 per month, in preference to the cheaper individual products.

Making these new apps and new updates exclusive to subscribers serves to tilt the balance further in favor of a subscription, strengthening Adobe's push to transform its business into one structured around monthly payments and not perpetual licensing.

Adobe isn't unique in attempting this; Microsoft is trying to do the same with Office 365. And like Adobe, Microsoft too has promised exclusive feature updates for subscribers. Adobe's numbers suggest that it is having some success with making this transition, though it still has a long way to go. A quarter of a million customers paying about $50 per month gives the company a healthy $160 million a year in revenue, but this is but a drop in the ocean compared to the full $4.4 billion the company turned over last year.

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Dreamweaver's new Edge Web Fonts support.

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Dreamweaver's new Edge Web Fonts support.

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Adobe has also updated Dreamweaver's grid layout capabilities.

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Edge Animate is a timeline-based animation application.

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Graphical color pickers inside a text editor in Edge Code.

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Edge Reflow shows the different CSS settings that apply at different widths for this responsively designed page.

39 Reader Comments

HA! Defacing web pages will now be easier than ever. Why hack into a web server when you can crack this thing, modify files, and just have them published next time the web guy uploads the changes. Adobe.

As an owner of CS6 instead of a subscriber allow me to respond with this: ┌∩┐(◣_◢)┌∩┐

I am not at all down with this new "rent your software!" trend.

Then don't subscribe. Just wait until the next "update" to CS6.5 or CS7 to get the things the subscribers get throughout the year.

There's really no difference in how it used to be, before the subscription model. You wait and pay for the major updates to get the new features, or get them as they're developed by subscribing throughout the year. Though you pay much more if you do a subscription for that "privilege".

Think of the subscribers that get these updates and new features more as "beta testers", and you're simply not on the beta team. Then, you finally get the features when you upgrade to the new version.

I don’t mind this at all. This is exactly how they said it would work, and the earlier availability of new features in the Cloud versions of everything doesn’t change the experience of buying and using and eventually upgrading the regular versions at all.

What would be nice, though, is if they could fix the display bugs under the operating system that came out three months after CS6 and therefore they were presumably testing before CS6 was ever released.

As an owner of CS6 instead of a subscriber allow me to respond with this: ┌∩┐(◣_◢)┌∩┐

I am not at all down with this new "rent your software!" trend.

You and me. When you work out the economics, it's pretty clear that the subscription model is a LOT more expensive annually than simply upgrading every major iteration. I depend upon Adobe's tools for my livelihood, but I'm not just going to hand them money for nothing.

"Pay per view" software is a business fad that can't die fast enough, IMHO.

As an owner of CS6 instead of a subscriber allow me to respond with this: ┌∩┐(◣_◢)┌∩┐

I am not at all down with this new "rent your software!" trend.

You and me. When you work out the economics, it's pretty clear that the subscription model is a LOT more expensive annually than simply upgrading every major iteration. I depend upon Adobe's tools for my livelihood, but I'm not just going to hand them money for nothing.

"Pay per view" software is a business fad that can't die fast enough, IMHO.

Totally agree. Plus, I only really use Lightroom, and rarely Photoshop so I'm keeping Lightroom up to date with major revisions, but I'm sticking with Photoshop CS5 for now. Screw this Software as a Service crap for heavy duty desktop software.

This isn't new. Adobe started this trend back in December when they released new major features for photoshop (and either indesign or illustrator, can't remember which as I don't really use those products). As a creative cloud subscriber I have no complaints. Photoshop is actually affordable now ($600 vs the $5k ish for CS master). I do wish they gave more storage space for cloud subscribers. 20gb is pretty paltry when working with the adobe suite

Yeah- my issue is that basic fixes have the appearance of being delayed because new shiny is coming out.

I do wish they offered pricing for a subset- the inDesign/Illustrator/Photoshop/Acrobat bundle is all an awful lot of users need. But it's one application or everything under the sun.

It's really been awful for SMBs- the old TLP with maintenance option is gone, but the Team edition came out to replace it long after. And ends up being more expensive to boot. It's a shame, because the CS6 production bundle could be a decent successor to FCS if they just made it a bit easier to get in.

As an owner of CS6 instead of a subscriber allow me to respond with this: ┌∩┐(◣_◢)┌∩┐

I am not at all down with this new "rent your software!" trend.

Then don't subscribe. Just wait until the next "update" to CS6.5 or CS7 to get the things the subscribers get throughout the year.

There's really no difference in how it used to be, before the subscription model. You wait and pay for the major updates to get the new features, or get them as they're developed by subscribing throughout the year. Though you pay much more if you do a subscription for that "privilege".

Think of the subscribers that get these updates and new features more as "beta testers", and you're simply not on the beta team. Then, you finally get the features when you upgrade to the new version.

Is it more expensive? Adobe seems to make a major version of CS every two years, a complete plan to creative cloud is $600 a year or $1200 over two years and a perpetual license to CS standard is $1300. So if you plan to update every release anyways Cloud is probably the best way to do it. Since you get the cloud storage and the more frequent updates. Cloud seems much less of a rip off than Office 365 at least.

(Although I realize most people/businesses probably don't update every version anyways...)

This isn't new. Adobe started this trend back in December when they released new major features for photoshop (and either indesign or illustrator, can't remember which as I don't really use those products). As a creative cloud subscriber I have no complaints. Photoshop is actually affordable now ($600 vs the $5k ish for CS master). I do wish they gave more storage space for cloud subscribers. 20gb is pretty paltry when working with the adobe suite

Ahem. Photoshop, as an individual, stand-alone "conventional" license, can be had new for $699, not $5k (you don't have to buy the entire suite if you just want the one product) and is only $199 to upgrade, every 1.5-2 years.

So compared to a licensed stand-alone user who is on the upgrade path, you're literally throwing $401 down the toilet every year, if you only want Photoshop and instead get the entire Creative Cloud.

As an owner of CS6 instead of a subscriber allow me to respond with this: ┌∩┐(◣_◢)┌∩┐

I am not at all down with this new "rent your software!" trend.

Then don't subscribe. Just wait until the next "update" to CS6.5 or CS7 to get the things the subscribers get throughout the year.

There's really no difference in how it used to be, before the subscription model. You wait and pay for the major updates to get the new features, or get them as they're developed by subscribing throughout the year. Though you pay much more if you do a subscription for that "privilege".

Think of the subscribers that get these updates and new features more as "beta testers", and you're simply not on the beta team. Then, you finally get the features when you upgrade to the new version.

Is it more expensive? Adobe seems to make a major version of CS every two years, a complete plan to creative cloud is $600 a year or $1200 over two years and a perpetual license to CS standard is $1300. So if you plan to update every release anyways Cloud is probably the best way to do it. Since you get the cloud storage and the more frequent updates. Cloud seems much less of a rip off than Office 365 at least.

(Although I realize most people/businesses probably don't update every version anyways...)

But a simple upgrade to the entire CS/x suite (licensed, not subscribed), is $599. That's what I paid to upgrade from CS/5 to CS/6 (Design Premium, in my case).

So when you take that into account, I pay $599 every two years to a subscriber's $1200 every two years. So is the subscription more expensive? Yes, by about twice.

Good to know that although I spent $900 on PS CS6 I don't receive the latest features with a simple update. Guess I'm kinda 2nd class customer to Adobe.Oops I forgot that not long ago Adobe didn't even want to give security upgrades to their customers. Only after a loud public outcry Adobe relented and proved older versions with an update.

As an owner of CS6 instead of a subscriber allow me to respond with this: ┌∩┐(◣_◢)┌∩┐

I am not at all down with this new "rent your software!" trend.

Then don't subscribe. Just wait until the next "update" to CS6.5 or CS7 to get the things the subscribers get throughout the year.

There's really no difference in how it used to be, before the subscription model. You wait and pay for the major updates to get the new features, or get them as they're developed by subscribing throughout the year. Though you pay much more if you do a subscription for that "privilege".

Think of the subscribers that get these updates and new features more as "beta testers", and you're simply not on the beta team. Then, you finally get the features when you upgrade to the new version.

Is it more expensive? Adobe seems to make a major version of CS every two years, a complete plan to creative cloud is $600 a year or $1200 over two years and a perpetual license to CS standard is $1300. So if you plan to update every release anyways Cloud is probably the best way to do it. Since you get the cloud storage and the more frequent updates. Cloud seems much less of a rip off than Office 365 at least.

(Although I realize most people/businesses probably don't update every version anyways...)

But a simple upgrade to the entire CS/x suite (licensed, not subscribed), is $599. That's what I paid to upgrade from CS/5 to CS/6 (Design Premium, in my case).

So when you take that into account, I pay $599 every two years to a subscriber's $1200 every two years. So is the subscription more expensive? Yes, by about twice.

The direct equivalent is Master Collection plus a separate Lightroom purchase. Master Collection is $2599 to start off, then $525 for upgrades. Lightroom is $149/$79. That upgrade pricing only applies if you buy every version; if you skip a version (upgrading from 5.0), the Master Collection upgrade is $1049.

Ignoring Ligthroom, after one year it's $600 (subscribed) versus $2600 (perpetual). After two years, it's $1200 versus $3125. Three years, $1600 versus $3125. Four years, $2400 versus $3650. Five years, $3000 versus $3650. Six years, $3600 versus $4175. Seven years, $4200 versus $4175. The perpetual licenses remain cheaper thereafter.

So yes, the subscription is more expensive eventually. But it actually takes a long time to get there.

The fundamental flaw for subscription, from a user perspective, is that we are paying in advance, for an upgrade that may or may not be released, and that may or may not include any features useful to us.

When a vendor makes his revenue from the subscription model, he lacks incentive to produce compelling upgrades that compete with, and surpass, his prior product. autodesk has become a master at this, shipping trivialities and niche features with their annual upgrades, but never bothering to make a fundamentally superior product.

And yet, for those of us who don't seem to feel the need for the Master Collection, or upgrade every major release, that time comes much, MUCH faster.

Sure, if you're not comparing like for like, the time happens sooner. But so what? I don't think it's particularly useful to say "if you compare cheaper, less capable versions of the software then they come out cheaper".

It would be good if they made a subscription that was aligned with a cheaper version of the suite, I suppose.

And yet, for those of us who don't seem to feel the need for the Master Collection, or upgrade every major release, that time comes much, MUCH faster.

Sure, if you're not comparing like for like, the time happens sooner. But so what? I don't think it's particularly useful to say "if you compare cheaper, less capable versions of the software then they come out cheaper".

It would be good if they made a subscription that was aligned with a cheaper version of the suite, I suppose.

You're right, I shouldn't have posted such a quick, flippant answer. I was working on a client project, but it's lunchtime now, here on the west coast.

From the economist's point of view, sure, I agree with you. Compare like for like, apples to apples, and in that vein, Creative Cloud isn't a bad deal at all. But once you get away from that lofty ivory tower...

I've been doing the graphic design/production art/prepress gig professionally for going on twenty-three years now. (Lord, I feel old saying that!) Started in 1990, when desktop computers were just starting to really put a dent in the field, and Aldus Pagemaker was the only layout program in town worth anything, as thoroughly abysmal as it was. (Somewhere in the furthest depths of my storage closet, I've got a set of Pagemaker 3.0 disks - on 5.25" floppies! - laying around collecting dust.)

What I've found in that time is that virtually nobody "does it all":

Myself, I work in print and e-books: brochures, books, catalogs, and Kindle/Nook. I use InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat Pro, and once in a while I dabble in Dreamweaver because I have to maintain my own firm's little website and the occasional site I put together for a client who just needs a static, online "brochure".

My friend the videographer, he uses Premier (after kicking Final Cut to the curb during those dark times) and occasionally Photoshop. He uses Dreamweaver at the same level and frequency as I do.

My friend the pro photographer, he uses Lightroom, Photoshop, and occasionally dabbles in InDesign, with my help, to do his own promo materials.

I used to manage a department in the creative services division for a multi-billion-dollar clothing manufacturer. The entire division pretty much used the same set of programs my own firm does now. We farmed out the high-end video work to outside agencies.

The average home user pretty much just wants Photoshop and/or Lightroom.

This is pretty typical across the entire graphic arts industry. About the only exception I see is the really huge one-stop-shop ad agencies, and even they farm out a lot of either print or video work, depending upon their emphasis. They're the only "legitimate" users of something like Master Collection that I can see. Sure, you've got the hobbyist who wants to learn and likes to dabble across disciplines, but that's a tiny fraction of Creative Suite sales. And you've got the guy who just has to have the Master Suite - the same guy who'd go into a Ferrari dealership and ask for one with an automatic transmission.

In my twenty-two years in the field, I haven't run into too many people (or firms) who really do page layout/illustration/image editing/film editing/photo RAW adjustment/PDF handling/PDF forms/Flash development/web page design/web app development and mobile development, all together.

And yet, the biggest selling point for Creative Cloud - and the only thing that brings it to even near economic parity with the older licensing model - is the fact that you get "all the programs". You essentially get Master Collection.

I run a business. In my particular business, I have absolutely zero need for Premier, Lightroom, or the like, any more than my videographer friend needs InDesign or Illustrator. And that's the case across pretty much the entire market for these products. No sane businessperson is going to waste their company's money on products they don't need and won't use, so a "purist" apples-to-apples comparison is precisely meaningless here.

And when you pull it back to the real world, comparing the costs of a "just what I need" licensed suite against the "everything and the kitchen sink" Creative Cloud suite, the economics just don't work out. As I said earlier, I can upgrade each seat in my studio to the current equivalent of CS/x Design Premium for $599, roughly every two years. Or I can spend $1200 every two years for the same tools, and more that I'll never use.

My problem with all of this subscription software is just how much control it give the company selling the software.

I have many Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign files on my computer, but am no longer actively using the software for anything. I bought a real copy of the software, so in 2-3 years and I need some of those files I can just install the software and be ready to go rather then having to pay Adobe for the privilege of opening my own files!

I already decided to see how I could do with things like GIMP and Inkscape, so far I don't miss Adobe too much, and with Google Drive, I soon will be able to cut the bonds with Microsoft as well.

As an owner of CS6 instead of a subscriber allow me to respond with this: ┌∩┐(◣_◢)┌∩┐

I am not at all down with this new "rent your software!" trend.

^This.

I stuck with CS5.5. The work I produce on it pays my bills, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna rent this crap.

I often wonder how much quicker my workflow would be if the utterly atrocious Illustrator wasn't industry standard. I would happily pay more for a vector app that wasn't so painful to use as I'd be able to do more jobs with it.

As an owner of CS6 instead of a subscriber allow me to respond with this: ┌∩┐(◣_◢)┌∩┐

I am not at all down with this new "rent your software!" trend.

...I often wonder how much quicker my workflow would be if the utterly atrocious Illustrator wasn't industry standard. I would happily pay more for a vector app that wasn't so painful to use as I'd be able to do more jobs with it.

Freehand was actually much easier to use, and use productively at the professional level, but then two things happened: Illustrator got true transparency capabilities, and Adobe bought Macromedia. Now Freehand is dead, and none of its features ever made it into Illustrator.

I've been using Illustrator off an on since it was Illustrator 88, but that doesn't mean I like it any more than you do.

This isn't new. Adobe started this trend back in December when they released new major features for photoshop (and either indesign or illustrator, can't remember which as I don't really use those products). As a creative cloud subscriber I have no complaints. Photoshop is actually affordable now ($600 vs the $5k ish for CS master). I do wish they gave more storage space for cloud subscribers. 20gb is pretty paltry when working with the adobe suite

Ahem. Photoshop, as an individual, stand-alone "conventional" license, can be had new for $699, not $5k (you don't have to buy the entire suite if you just want the one product) and is only $199 to upgrade, every 1.5-2 years.

So compared to a licensed stand-alone user who is on the upgrade path, you're literally throwing $401 down the toilet every year, if you only want Photoshop and instead get the entire Creative Cloud.

But I'm sure Adobe thanks you.

I would say you could use the photoshop only version of creative cloud but adobe discontinued that for some reason. I don't think I am the only digital artist who uses multiple apps. The last major project I worked on needed some work in After Effects which paid for my subscirption but I also have maya, mudbox and vue infinite installed as well so maybe I am unusal? I'm thinking of using speedgrade for working on 32-bit assets since photoshop has crappy support for openEXR. Might as well use it since I have it. I do mainly work in photoshop and lightroom but when I need another app it's good to have access to them. The money doesn't seem like a lot to me.

edit: didn't realize it was "only" $3k for CS master. Still seems like a good deal if you upgrade every version

As an owner of CS6 instead of a subscriber allow me to respond with this: ┌∩┐(◣_◢)┌∩┐

I am not at all down with this new "rent your software!" trend.

^This.

I stuck with CS5.5. The work I produce on it pays my bills, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna rent this crap.

I often wonder how much quicker my workflow would be if the utterly atrocious Illustrator wasn't industry standard. I would happily pay more for a vector app that wasn't so painful to use as I'd be able to do more jobs with it.

One thing that pisses me off about sticking with older versions, Photoshop in this particular instance, is that they don't update ACR. Right now I'm debating whether it's worth it to upgrade to CS6, because I want to upgrade to Lightroom 4 as well. But Adobe won't update Photoshop CS5.5 to ACR 7, so either I also have to update to CS6 or I have to give up ACR parity for my photo editing and have Lightroom render out a PSD or tiff before sending that to Photoshop.

I'm almost tempted to do the $600/yr subscription, even though I certainly don't need the entire Master Collection. I regularly use/need Lightroom, Photoshop, and Illustrator. Less regularly, but often enough that having up to date versions available is desirable, InDesign, Fireworks, Premiere Pro, and After Effects. I haven't touched Dreamweaver since Adobe bought Macromedia (and I used to love it from beta through MX), and I can't say I've ever even launched others like Encore or Contribute. The closest I've come to working with Flash is Macromedia Director (again, before Adobe bought them).

Unfortunately they don't even offer perpetual versions of the suite that cover all those bases. Design & Web + individual Premiere Pro and After Effects (or Production + individual InDesign and Fireworks) is more expensive than just getting the Master Collection. The only reason I'm hesitant on the subscription is because I typically skip versions (ie: CS to CS3 to CS5.5), making it $600 every 2-2.5 years instead of every year.

Someone in the Verge comments tries to justify Adobe's pricing of Photoshop based on the technology in it, but most people do not use those features (3D, Analysis, advanced filters like Vanishing Point, Automation, Scripts). Adobe would be better served to offer different sets of features as modules you could tack onto your base model Photoshop, allowing people to "rent" features as they need them instead of charging these stupid, alienating prices.

Pixelmator (a $25 Mac-only competitor) includes everything a normal user would want out of Photoshop and does so even better than Adobe does, and if we're talking price, you can't forget the free and open-source GIMP.

I'm part of the 19% opting for a single product, as a developer I don't need to do too much image work but when I do I like to use Photoshop, I've tried many other apps, GIMP, Elements, Paint Shop Pro etc and none work out that well for me, Photoshop is so much easier to use and at £17p/m I consider it quite good value.

One thing that pisses me off about sticking with older versions, Photoshop in this particular instance, is that they don't update ACR. Right now I'm debating whether it's worth it to upgrade to CS6, because I want to upgrade to Lightroom 4 as well. But Adobe won't update Photoshop CS5.5 to ACR 7, so either I also have to update to CS6 or I have to give up ACR parity for my photo editing and have Lightroom render out a PSD or tiff before sending that to Photoshop.

Yes, that's annoying. But it can be worked around. The Adobe DNG converter is free and uses the current version of ACR. You do lose a lot of control that way.

Lightroom is cheap and uses the current version of ACR. So you can get a Lightroom license and use and older version of Photoshop.

Adobe, being the blood sucking misanthropes that they are will probably never do this, but it would be trivial to have DIFFERENT subscription plans or even a la carte subscriptions. You don't HAVE to grind every dollar out of every customer. You CAN use some common sense and perhaps take a customer focused approach every once in a while. Who knows, people might even like you.

I think Adobe management has a picture of Larry Ellison in a closet with hundreds of candles and a dead chicken that they pray to every morning.

Yes, that's annoying. But it can be worked around. The Adobe DNG converter is free and uses the current version of ACR. You do lose a lot of control that way.

Lightroom is cheap and uses the current version of ACR. So you can get a Lightroom license and use and older version of Photoshop.

Yeah, I'll be updating Lightroom either way, even if I don't opt for the subscription. But I do like with Photoshop's ACR having feature parity with Lightroom that I can send a photo to Photoshop without having to first render it out. It's a small but significant difference, because you can send it as a Smart Object when they have feature parity, and that gives you full ACR editing of the original file, with layers and all the added power of Photoshop's editing on top of that. You give that up when you have to render it out, and bake Lightroom's edits in.

I wish they would provide ACR as a standalone. I'd be willing to pay for it, not too much, and certainly less than Lightroom considering it doesn't have any of the library or metadata management. As long as it didn't care what version of Photoshop you were running and Photoshop didn't care what version of ACR you had, it would just call it as a separate program when needed for tweaking DNG or XMP settings.

You people DO realize that you do NOT have to go to a subscription model to use CS6, yes? Like the one that said "I stuck with CS5.5. The work I produce on it pays my bills, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna rent this crap." You DO realize that you can just pay to upgrade to CS6 just like you did with CS5.5 or CS4 or CS3 etc. You have to realize this. You don't have to rent anything. No subscriptions.

If you don't want to subscribe, then don't subscribe. It's as simple as that. Why all the bitching and moaning? The people that DO subscribe get a few perks...that's it.

Now, if Adobe was going 100% subscription (or "rent", as the gentleman above said), then I would join you all in grabbing our pitchforks and storming the castle. But they're not doing that here. Hey, they may in the future, who knows. But as it stands right now, right here, they're not.

Freehand was better than Illustrator.... in the mid 90s. Freehand then stagnated. But hey, I've met people who think OS9 was better than OS X and even one person who believed Quark ate InDesign up, so it takes all sorts I guess.

As an owner of CS6 instead of a subscriber allow me to respond with this: ┌∩┐(◣_◢)┌∩┐

I am not at all down with this new "rent your software!" trend.

^This.

I stuck with CS5.5. The work I produce on it pays my bills, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna rent this crap.

I often wonder how much quicker my workflow would be if the utterly atrocious Illustrator wasn't industry standard. I would happily pay more for a vector app that wasn't so painful to use as I'd be able to do more jobs with it.

If I could only up-vote the above post 1000 times!

Funny that I actually said almost the same thing to a colleague this very morning. I can't believe I'm even writing this next part, but I'm considering taking a "new" look at CorelDraw. (oh my GAWD!!!! Nooo!)

If I was the religious type, I'd pray for all of the poor graphic designer souls that rely on this travesty for their daily bread, and deliverance from this evil wanna-be software called Illustrator that is sucking out our very creativity, leaving us in twisted, writhing, pitifully humbled servants to our Master Adobe in his gilded Suite!

You people DO realize that you do NOT have to go to a subscription model to use CS6, yes? Like the one that said "I stuck with CS5.5. The work I produce on it pays my bills, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna rent this crap." You DO realize that you can just pay to upgrade to CS6 just like you did with CS5.5 or CS4 or CS3 etc. You have to realize this. You don't have to rent anything. No subscriptions.

If you don't want to subscribe, then don't subscribe. It's as simple as that. Why all the bitching and moaning? The people that DO subscribe get a few perks...that's it.

Now, if Adobe was going 100% subscription (or "rent", as the gentleman above said), then I would join you all in grabbing our pitchforks and storming the castle. But they're not doing that here. Hey, they may in the future, who knows. But as it stands right now, right here, they're not.

Come on...

What "moronic" posts? Most Adobe users KNOW they can stay behind by choosing a perpetual license, or by not upgrading. You should take a look in the mirror if you need a better definition of the word.

Certain potentially useful features are being held back for no other good reason than to force people to go with a subscription. Iterative updates to software owned should be available to ANY TYPE of license. Period.

What "moronic" posts? Most Adobe users KNOW they can stay behind by choosing a perpetual license, or by not upgrading. You should take a look in the mirror if you need a better definition of the word.

Certain potentially useful features are being held back for no other good reason than to force people to go with a subscription. Iterative updates to software owned should be available to ANY TYPE of license. Period.

Right, we're not dumb, we've been around the block with Adobe. I've been using Photoshop since version 2.5, 1992. No idea how much money I've given them. That doesn't make me a special snowflake, but I'm a long time customer, and if I don't appreciate how they're choosing to treat my business I'm going to feel free to flip them some ASCII birds. I feel that I've earned that right.

Freehand was better than Illustrator.... in the mid 90s. Freehand then stagnated. But hey, I've met people who think OS9 was better than OS X and even one person who believed Quark ate InDesign up, so it takes all sorts I guess.

Agreed 100%, but Freehand had some really nice interface features and so on, that Illustrator could still be improved with today. Illustrator IS the industry standard, but that doesn't mean it can't be improved, or that some aspects of other programs weren't better. Inks, for example - multi-ink was a feature that originated in Freehand, of the two. Masking was better. And Freehand had the ability to have differing artboard sizes in one file LONG before Illustrator finally caught up a version or two ago. Symbols originated in Freehand, and their version is still better than that in Illustrator.

But when Illustrator got true transparency, as opposed to the faux version that Freehand was stuck with until the end, that was the beginning of the end for Freehand.

Totally agree that first Macromedia, and then Adobe, let Freehand stagnate and die. Especially Adobe.